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Susanne Johnson is a lead advocate for Heroes in Recovery, which is an organization founded on the mission to help break the stigma of addiction and mental health issues. She and other individuals commit to making healthy lifestyle choices and post articles on the web site regularly to bring hope to the recovery community.

Susanne Johnson Explains Addiction

Getting educated about the disease of addiction is important in order to help break the stigma. Susanne Johnson explained, “Addiction is a disease and it is nobody’s fault to have it. It only becomes someone’s fault if he doesn’t do anything about it.” Without a proper and accurate understanding of the diagnosis of addiction, people will not be able to adequately address the issue.

Getting proactive about the treatment of the disease is pivotal for sufferers. This will require sufferers to commit to doing work on themselves through a recovery program, which may involve building a network team of strong individuals for support, seeking mental health treatment, and medication if prescribed by a doctor. Above all, hope and encouragement are going to be necessary to carry the individual through difficulty.

Advocating for Heroes in Recovery

As an advocate for Heroes in Recovery, Susanne Johnson helps extinguish stigma surrounding addiction and mental illness by writing articles that feature topics about recovery. She advocates by explaining addiction and instilling the idea that recovery is attainable when individuals seek help to work on themselves. “It would be my dream come true to see people who need help get treatment without feeling shame or guilt and to see the world have tolerance and understanding for the disease of addiction,” says Johnson.

Sharing her Personal Experience

Being an advocate for those in addiction means being a hero in recovery! What does it mean to be a hero in recovery, though? A hero can be explained as an individual who is brave enough to step up to the plate to seek help when they desperately need it to combat their addiction and/or mental illness.

However, a hero doesn’t have to stop there. Heroes in recovery can extend to family members, friends, coworkers, and other loved ones that support addicts and sufferers of mental health issues by going the extra mile to help their loved one when they need someone by their side. Susanne Johnson is an excellent example of this, not only because she advocates by writing for the organization, but because she has shared her own experience of having struggled with substance use issues, lacking balance in her life, struggling to please people, and having trouble finding harmony as the end result.

Johnson was able to be open, honest, and real with the public about her life. This demonstrates the work she has put into her own recovery and shows how the process is possible for others to go through to achieve. She has become a recovery icon and an inspiration that struggling individuals can look up to. Susanne has detailed how she has found a mental and emotional place of stability in her life that doesn’t bring her to as extreme highs or pitiful lows as when she was active in her disease. Finding balance has shifted her life entirely and taught her how to instead live feeling content with herself.

Heroes in Recovery brings together addicts and sufferers from mental illness to encourage them to help break the stigma held against them and their disease. With leaders like Susanne Johnson sharing her own experience, hope can be brought to addicts and sufferers of mental illness. Heroes in Recovery shows that we can and we do recover and live happy productive lives.